


[SG1] Home from Here, by Merry

by Molly



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-03
Updated: 2011-04-03
Packaged: 2017-10-17 13:15:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/177211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molly/pseuds/Molly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>In which Jack and Daniel live happily ever after.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	[SG1] Home from Here, by Merry

**Author's Note:**

> Written for greensilver's J/D Ficathon.

Nine years of missions through the stargate had taught Jack O'Neill one very important thing: You could never get any really good constellations off-world. Sometimes you could get one of the natives to point out some of their own, but they usually had weird names and weirder stories attached to them. Like that time on Udova, with the Great Wheel of Singing Rats. Apparently they'd eaten some bad corn and died, saving the entire province from food poisoning. Either that little girl had been pulling his leg, or Udova needed to outsource its mythology writers.

Hadn't even looked like a wheel. More of an oval kind of thing.

He missed Orion. There was a story he could get behind. The great Hunter, the hounds, the golden fleece -- okay, so maybe he didn't really remember the whole story, but he remembered that he liked it, and seeing Orion always made him feel better. You couldn't buy a high like that anywhere off-world. He missed missions when he was behind his desk, being the Reverend General Jack O'Neill; but he missed home more, when he was out here, trying to see his own stars in another planet's sky.

"Jack?"

"Over here." Daniel's shadow loomed next to him, catching just the barest edge of the light. Jack put a hand on Daniel's arm, stopped him just before he would have walked right past. "Right here."

"Oh. Sorry. My night vision kind of..."

"Sucks?"

"Yeah."

"Imagine my surprise."

Daniel just looked at him. His eyes were huge behind the glasses, wide, pushing for light that was just barely there. Jack felt a little smug, totally acclimated as he was. He could see Daniel's grin just fine even though, point of fact, Daniel's expression didn't change at all. Something at the corners of his eyes, maybe.

"Risha sent me to find you. She's worried you won't find your way back for the ceremony."

"Me? Skip out on ritual virgin-dunking? I hear there's gonna be a buffet."

" _Chakela s'lee_."

"Do I need to bring a gift?"

"As a matter of fact, you do. Traditionally, visiting dignitaries present at the _chakela s'lee_ are expected to honor the maiden's mother with fifteen of their finest _ker'esh'lan_."

"Uh...do we actually have any...of..."

" _Ker'esh'lan_ ," Daniel said, blinking. It was the blink of 'I'm not going to help you'. Jack knew it well.

"Ker-es..."

"Esh."

" _Ker-esh-lan._ "

Daniel nodded, smiling in a way Jack could actually see this time.

"Do we?"

"Do we what?"

"Have any ker-a-whatsis to give the matron of honor!"

"Nnnoo...we didn't bring any of the SGC's camels with us." Daniel's eyebrows went up. "We tried, but they always balk at the event horizon."

Jack was liking this mission. It was his kind of thing. Sure, it was a milk run -- just next door navigationally speaking -- but it was a good one to go out on. The political types loved him, these days; they weren't about to risk anything worse than a hangnail for their future hero of the Goa'uld Wars. He was expected to grace many a stump speech between now and the end of his inevitably photogenic decline.

Still, there was a lot to be said for a good milk run. Friendly natives, fertility rituals, and lots of warm, dry, sunny days. The people here sang a lot, and smiled a lot, and so far hadn't shot at anybody. His own people were responding accordingly, and except for the singing, Jack didn't have any complaints. He watched Daniel carefully while Daniel carefully didn't meet his eyes, then grinned. "You _so_ totally did that on purpose."

"Did what?"

"Riiiight."

"Listen, Jack -- Risha showed me some of their _kenshan_ , their photographs, of the north slope of those mountains we filmed from the UAV. Most of it's just boring. Lots of dust, some caves...more dust. But one of the shots had a line on it, straight and very white. It was cut at a slant into the mountain, and I'm fairly sure it was man-made."

"So? What? They like to ski?"

"No... Risha says her people didn't build it."

"And you're thinking maybe 'man-made' is the wrong term."

Daniel nodded. "I don't think it's dangerous - it's probably just a stairway leading up to a hole in the rock. Still, I'd feel better if I had some backup along. Wouldn't be the first time we got surprised in a 'friendly' situation."

"That's a fine strategic mind you've developed there, Dr. Jackson."

"Thanks, Jack. I see your vocabulary's coming along nicely, too."

"Take Anderson and Hayes. Carter's already got Teal'c hauling survey equipment over from base camp."

"What about you?"

"Me?"

"You don't want to see what it is?"

"You said it was just a hole in the rock."

"I said it was _probably_ just a hole in the rock."

"Then I'm _probably_ going to have more fun down here."

"But it might be something interesting."

"Yeah," Jack said. "But there might be _leftovers._ "

After a second, Daniel nodded. "Save me some of the --"

"Green stuff." Jack nodded back, and returned his attention to the sky. "Got you covered."

Beside him, Daniel shifted closer and looked up. They stood there, quiet, warm and comfortable in the darkness. Behind them, from the crowd around the fire, Jack could still hear singing. He was really, really liking this mission.

Some time later - seconds, minutes, Jack had lost track - Daniel turned to head back.

"Hey, Daniel?"

Daniel turned, shoving his glasses back up his nose. It might have helped if they came equipped for night vision. "Jack?"

"Where's home from here?"

For a minute, Daniel just looked at him. A weird look, like Jack had suddenly sprouted illegible hieroglyphic tattoos all over his face. "Forget it," Jack said.

"No, no -- I'm sorry, I just wasn't expecting that."

"I have depths, you know."

"I know."

"Very...deep depths."

"Look." Daniel moved behind him, steadied himself on Jack's shoulder, and pointed. "See the three stars that kind of line up?"

Jack sighted along Daniel's arm and found them. "The three with the red one last?"

"Yeah. Now, down one from the red? You can barely see it."

"That's it?"

"No, but the one next to it is. On the right."

Jack looked at it. Daniel dropped his arm, but kept his hold on Jack's shoulder. It was a small star, barely even visible. Not a steady shine, not a strong one, but it looked good. Like a light in a window.

"Thanks, Daniel."

Daniel shrugged once, stuck his hands in his pockets, and smiled at the ground. "Long way from here."

"Not really," Jack said. "Not that far."

* * *

Daniel's hole in the rock was just a hole, though the stairs were apparently _fascinating_. Daniel was going to send a team back later. The day passed with absolutely no trauma beyond Carter's participation in a group sing and Teal'c's refusal to let even one more virgin fondle his arms. If they let him, Teal'c could make a good start on repopulating the Jaffa nation right here. Jack's team was tented up and sleeping, the night was warm and quiet, and all was right with the world. This one, anyway.

The fires had burned down to embers, and Risha and her girls had banked them. Jack wasn't sure what the fires were actually for, since they didn't need light, and the night was plenty warm. Some ritual thing, according to Daniel, something to do with the gods of pollenization or fertilization or fermentation or something. Fires everywhere, and warm bodies everywhere beside them. Jack was sweating a river into his clothes and he knew when they dried they'd chafe like hell. They didn't mention any of this in the SGC recruitment brochures.

At least the smoke kept the bugs off. Lovely little guys they had around here, like giant blue dragonflies with teeth. They weren't poisonous but they had a bite that stung like hell and tended to get infected.

Next to Jack, a bundle of camouflage shifted and muttered in its sleep. He didn't recognize any of the words, and he'd given up trying half an hour ago. Of course, Daniel could go out like a light, and of course he talked in his sleep. He was Daniel. And of course it would be unintelligible, because, see above. Team members with anti-social sleeping habits -- didn't mention that in the recruitment brochures, either. Still, Jack found it kind of comforting. Familiar. It was a relief from the sounds of the night, which were making him kind of twitchy.

Tomorrow they went home. Daniel had one final early morning appointment with Risha's stairs in the mountain that Jack fully intended to sleep through, and Carter wanted to stay through lunch. She'd fallen in love with a kind of buttery cheese sauce they made here and wanted to "collect some samples" before heading back. Jack didn't mind, as long as she made enough for everybody once she figured it out. Teal'c was eager to get back to the base, in his own low-key expressionless kind of way, but Teal'c was pretty goal-oriented. He wasn't the outcast free-lancer Jack had picked up for a song on Abydos; he had a nation now, responsibilities, and there was nobody here to shoot and nothing they could use. If Jack hadn't asked, chances were Teal'c wouldn't have come.

Daniel flopped over onto his back again, and started to snore. Jack nudged him with an elbow.

"Whmzit?"

"Turn over."

"Ngmph." Daniel turned over. The snoring softened to a low buzz.

"Thank you."

Something that wasn't a cricket started making a not-cricket whirr off to the right. Jack turned onto his side and brought his arm up to supplement his jacket as a pillow. The fire was in its last seconds of life, glowing a dull, warm red. Someone would be by to feed it soon.

Teal'c was on watch. Jack closed his eyes. He liked this mission. This mission made his top ten.

* * *

It should have been easy, Jack thought, to say _it doesn't end here_. He had his desk taped up in a ratty cardboard box: books and toys and paperclips, ballpoint pens, a three-hole-punch he was stealing. Not a lot to show for a year in the big chair; it wasn't like he could pack up the parking space and take it with him.

He handed the box to Daniel, took a last look at the office, and dropped his key on the blotter. He picked up his nameplate and dropped it in the trash.

"Sure you're not gonna want that, later?" Daniel said. His voice was carefully light.

Just as light, Jack said, "Didn't really want it to begin with."

* * *

In the briefing room, Carter stared at the fake ficus in the corner like they didn't all know she'd gone slush-faced. Teal'c stood by with more warmth in his expression than he'd showed the first three years he spent on the base. There was blue jello (ha) and banana cream pie and coffee, and nobody touched any of it. They just milled, if four people in a dead silent room could be said to mill. It was kind of like a funeral, Jack thought, which was both morbid and stupid, because he was breathing more freely now than he had all year.

"Well," Daniel said eventually. His eyebrows were up and the corners of his mouth were down, which meant he'd been observing and now he was done and he wasn't impressed. "Are we actually going to --"

"No," Jack said quickly. "Absolutely not."

"Then maybe we should --"

"Right," Carter said, and hunched in with her arms wrapped around herself. She was a little wild-eyed, so Jack didn't make any sudden movements. "I should get back to the lab. Bennett's doing some great work with enhanced superconductive naquadah chips and overclock capacity on the mainframe, really interesting stuff..." She trailed off, and looked around at all of them, and laughed a strained, soft laugh. "If you're me, I guess."

"I have nowhere else I need to be," Teal'c said calmly, and Daniel said, "Yes, you do," and Teal'c said, "Yes, I do," and followed Carter out of the room.

Which left Jack and Daniel and an all-you-can-eat blue jello buffet.

"Soooo," Daniel said. Jack rolled his eyes. "Need a lift?"

"You draw the short straw again, Daniel?"

"Still holding it from the last time."

"You know I don't need an escort to my own house, right? I do still know the way."

"Good," Daniel said. He handed Jack the box full of his stewardship of the most important secret on the planet, then fished in his pocket for his keys. "You can navigate."

Sometimes, Jack wondered if Daniel knew what _lame_ meant. It was basic boot-camp psychology, it didn't take a genius to recognize it. If Daniel drove Jack home, Jack would have to come back to the base to get his car. If Jack had to come back to the base to get his car, he'd have to at least come in and say hello. If Jack came in to say hello, maybe he'd stick around a while, realize he'd missed the place, and want his old job back. It was nothing Jack wouldn't have done for Daniel, if their situations were reversed.

But Jack was not going to miss his job. Everything he'd miss, he'd been missing for a year already. Everything Daniel thought Jack was giving up, he gave up when he took Hammond's chair.

Twilight was ridiculously beautiful, clear and cool and bright with familiar stars. With the wind on his face and the clean smell of pine filling up his lungs, Jack had a flash of _off-world_. Earth was grey walls and grey halls, fluorescent lights and recycled air. It was like culture shock sometimes, leaving the base through the wrong door and ending up on the alien planet he was born to. He was looking forward to getting reacquainted with his native soil.

"You need to stop at the grocery store?"

Jack looked at Daniel. "Do I need to worry? Are you guys going to have me put away? Because I have a lot of very good years left, you know. I'm retiring, not dying."

"I don't worry about you dying. I worry about you starving. You didn't make it off base much, this last year."

"I don't need groceries."

"Okay, okay. Home it is." Daniel glanced over at Jack, just for a second. It was a weird look, and Jack couldn't figure out what was weird about it until he replayed it in his mind and realized Daniel was _smiling_.

"You might as well tell me what it is, you know."

Daniel smiled wider, looked at Jack again. His eyes twinkled, which Jack wouldn't have believed if he hadn't witnessed it himself.

"Stop that," Jack said, unnerved. "That's an order."

Turning down Jack's street, Daniel said mildly, "You remember which one is yours?"

When Jack went into his house, Daniel went with him. He checked out the fridge -- Jack smugly noted it was fully stocked, just like the housekeeping service promised -- and wandered through the rooms like a ghost.

"Did I ever say I was glad to have you back from the dead this time?" Jack asked quietly.

Daniel paused by the kitchen door, frowning in thought. "I don't remember."

"I don't think I did."

"Well." Daniel pushed his glasses up his nose. "I was naked at the time."

Jack smiled fondly, remembering. "Yeah. I know."

* * *

One day of drunken nostalgia and Sci-fi movie marathons later, Jack was sober again and Daniel was unconscious on his couch. Jack kicked half-heartedly at one of the oak legs of it, and Daniel moved not at all. Jack shook his head and wandered into the kitchen to make coffee.

He set out two mugs, dumped cream into one and sugar into the other, and leaned against the counter while the automatic drip made choking, gurgling sounds and bled hot, bitter coffee-smell into the air. When the pot was almost full, the kitchen door swung open and Daniel shuffled in, eyes at half-mast, one hand rubbing absently over his hair. He dropped into a chair at the kitchen table, blinked and squinted at the sunlight pouring through the windows, and pulled the mug nearest to him into something very close to a hug. Jack pulled the pot out, slid his cup under the drip, and went to the table to start Daniel's IV.

"Thanks," Daniel said, and then there was a slurpy kind of sound right after that might have been Jack's name if it hadn't been made through a mouth full of coffee.

Jack sat across from Daniel, sometimes drinking, but mostly just looking because Daniel was in no condition to notice. It was nice like this. Most days he had to do his looking across a conference table, or a desk, or a P-90. Most days Daniel wasn't wearing yesterday's faded and wrinkled green t-shirt over faded and worn blue jeans. His eyes were bleary and bloodshot, and his hair stuck up in dark spikes all over his head. He had a thin pink stripe running down the left side of his face that perfectly matched the seam of a couch cushion. Jack's eyes were following it over the curve of Daniel's jaw when Daniel looked up suddenly, startlingly alert, and caught him at it.

"Jack?"

For a second he thought about playing dumb. It wouldn't be the first time, not by a long shot. He'd spent a lot of years noticing Daniel, and making sure nobody noticed him noticing; his obliviousness was legendary, famed in song and story. Meeting Daniel's eyes now, though, it occurred to Jack that he'd spent a lot of years fooling a lot of people who weren't Daniel, and he wasn't about to start fooling him now. Daniel knew him too well.

He shrugged, and left his eyes on Daniel's. "Sorry," he said, though he wasn't really at all.

Daniel ran both hands over his face, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. "It's what, five o'clock in the morning? You couldn't have," he waved one hand at Jack's face, "...later? I'm still on my first cup."

Jack shrugged again. "It's nine-thirty. Hey, I let you sleep in."

Daniel looked faintly horrified.

"Daniel." Jack looked at him warmly, the way he'd always wanted to. Daniel's face was so open; Jack could read his mind there, if he looked long enough. "I'm retired. In the past year I've done a job I never wanted, I've watched people I care about die, I've had my ass kicked by several aliens ranging from the morally ambiguous to the absolutely evil -- a few of whom I was certain were already dead, by the way --"

"And what? Life's too short?"

"Kind of. That, and all the stuff that used to stop me seems pretty stupid at this point. I'm a little beyond the reach of don't ask, don't tell these days, and what are they gonna do to you? Fire you?"

Daniel snorted. "And hire some other ex-Ascended archaeologist with a pathological grudge against the Goa'uld? Don't get me wrong, I'm sure they're out there, but how many would work for my salary?"

"You always did sell yourself short, Daniel."

Daniel's eyes dropped to his mug. It was empty; his hands trembled on it, and he closed them firmly around it to keep them still. He nodded, and stood up. "More coffee?"

"No." Jack pushed his chair back, and pushed his mug away. Daniel watched him with sharp, bright eyes, like he thought Jack could strike at any moment.

He wasn't far wrong. Jack stretched, arms high and wide over his head; it made his t-shirt ride up, showing skin.

"You did that on purpose," Daniel accused, staring at Jack's stomach.

Jack rolled his eyes. "No kidding."

* * *

Out of the kitchen, down the hall, up the stairs. Daniel followed Jack, quiet and weirdly passive. Weird until they reached Jack's bedroom, where -- Jack had every hope -- interesting things were just about to happen. He'd certainly waited long enough.

When they passed through the door, when Daniel's gaze landed on Jack's bed, the passivity burned off, leaving bright, animated eyes and a kind of leaning, a full-body tilt in Jack's general direction. Jack found himself wanting to lean back more than he wanted to take his next breath of air. He stood in front of his window, in the sunlight, and waited for Daniel to get himself across the floor.

But Daniel didn't cross. He stood, fidgeting, at the foot of the bed. And then he started talking.

"I've got this theory."

Jack closed his eyes, and tried not to groan. "No, really. You? A theory?"

"Well...no, not really a theory, it's not that cohesive. Kind of a...hypothesis."

"Meaning a guess."

"More like a speculation."

"About?"

"You," Daniel said. "And me."

"Us?" Jack tried out the word.

"Yes. Us."

"So what is it?"

"What?"

"The theory, Daniel. The hypothesis?"

"Yeah." Daniel took his glasses off, folded them carefully. On his way to Jack, he left them on the bedside table. He looked up at Jack sideways, smiling just a little. The sun was in his eyes, but he never once blinked. "The hypothesis."

Slowly, Jack smiled back. "I'm going to like this hypothesis. I've just got a feeling."

Daniel looked good here. The light did good things to him. Jack had a weakness for this kind of sunlight, always had. He'd proposed to Sarah on a day just like this one, bright and cool. Seventeen years ago, God, had it been that long? He'd spent a lot of days under the suns of a lot of different planets since then. Daniel had been right beside him most of the time, but Jack didn't remember Daniel ever looking quite like this. He didn't remember anybody ever looking quite like this.

Daniel shifted closer. "Jack."

"Daniel..."

Daniel grinned. It flashed out of him so fast Jack almost missed it because whenever he grinned like that, Daniel looked away. It was like he couldn't stand to have anybody see it. See that they got in.

But Jack was in. And Daniel knew that, so when he looked back, he was still smiling. It had faded a little, but it was still there, and there was color in his cheeks and at the tops of his ears. His head was down and when he looked up at Jack to see what was going on there, Jack had to reach out and hang onto the window frame to steady himself.

Daniel reached out, too. He laid his hand on Jack's neck. The touch was hot, solid, and Daniel moved a little closer, stroked his thumb up over Jack's Adam's apple, a long, slow, calloused scrape.

"Daniel."

"Shhh." Daniel took a last step, and he was so close Jack could smell the coffee on his breath. His face was so smooth. "Here's my theory, Jack. I think SG-1 has given everything we have to that mountain, to this planet; more than anyone else, more than we could ever really afford."

"I know that."

"We've lived and died for our people. Some of us more than once." Daniel started to look down. He stopped before he could complete it. He smiled, shy, embarrassed -- yeah, Jack knew that look. He had to answer it, smile back. Daniel didn't give him any choice.

Jack swallowed. "With you so far." He felt like he should move away, but he didn't want to. Not at all. And it would have been rude, anyway, to move now when he hadn't moved before. And then there was the way Daniel smelled.

"Good," Daniel said. His grip got stronger and he pulled, and they were together then, body to body. "My theory."

"Yeah?" Jack was touching Daniel's face, and he wasn't sure when he'd started, but it didn't matter, because it would definitely be rude to back away now when he had his hand on Daniel's face, and his thumb was moving over Daniel's lower lip like that. And they were so close.

"I think we've given up enough."

Daniel. Yeah, Daniel...

Mouth on his. Warm, strange but warm, not just any mouth but Daniel's, Daniel touching him like this. Heat shuddered through him and Jack leaned in, opened up. He tasted Daniel easily and it was good, so good. He made a sound at the back of his throat. He didn't mean to, just a small sound, but something happened then and Daniel's arms came around Jack hard and his hips ground in and Jack had to push back, get some air, because if he didn't he was going to fall. He had Daniel's taste in his mouth, Daniel's heat on his skin. He was already falling.

When he pulled back, he didn't know what he was going to say. He wasn't really sure he was capable of saying anything. This was another look for Daniel -- wet at the mouth, distracted around the eyes, straining toward Jack like he was dying of thirst and Jack was the world's very last glass of water. Easier just to lean in and let him drink.

But instead he said, "You know I brought you here for sex, right?"

For a second, Daniel just kept looking at him. Then he folded, falling toward Jack, and latched onto his shoulders. Laughing. He dropped his forehead against Jack's, slipped his hands up to Jack's neck and cupped it, holding him still and shaking.

A little annoyed, with the last part of himself that wasn't already spiritually naked and in bed with Daniel, Jack said, "What? I don't have needs?"

That just made him laugh harder, and kiss Jack while he was laughing, kiss Jack with his lips and tongue and teeth and the kind of laugh Daniel never laughed, all the while pulling at Jack's t-shirt, lifting it over his head. He got rid of his own, too, somehow, though it didn't seem to Jack that Daniel's hands ever left his body.

"I've been waiting for you for years," Daniel said into the most sensitive spot on Jack's throat. "I thought you'd never retire. Thought you'd drop in the traces." He licked, gently, which made Jack shudder, then bit just as gently, which almost made Jack come. He lifted Daniel's head, fingers splayed across his cheekbones; Daniel was still smiling. His hands ran up Jack's sides, curled up around his shoulders from behind.

"That doesn't -- ah -- that doesn't change the facts. I brought you here--"

"Jack."

"Daniel?"

That smile again, quiet laughter; God, in all the years he'd known him, had Daniel ever once been happy? He'd certainly never looked like this. Jack would have remembered; hell, he would have been permanently blinded.

"Jack," Daniel said again, warm voice shading toward hot. "Who _drove?_ "

  


.end


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